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TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
TOPIC 29666 HEARING AID 101
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INTERVIEWER: I’m speaking today with Pam Mason. Pam is the Director of Audiology
Professional Practices for the American Speech Language Hearing Association. And our
subject is ‘Hearing aids 101’. Pam is a hearing aid always the answer to poor hearing and
how do you know if it is?
RESPONDENT: Well you know sometimes people are not quite ready for hearing aids.
Either emotionally or their hearing loss is on the borderline. They may just need some
assistance in a few situations such as listening on the phone. There are many hearing
assistive technologies available. And these can be used with or without hearing aids. An
example is amplified telephones or loud doorbell ringers. And there are large area
systems that are used in places of worship, theaters and community meeting rooms.
These large area systems can be accessed using a telephone coil that can be built into
your hearing aid. Or if you don’t wear a hearing aid these systems can be accessed using
headsets that are supplied by the venue. So you’ll see if you go to live theater that there
maybe people with a headset on so that they can enjoy the performance. They may not
have a hearing aid underneath those headsets. So there are things that you can do without
a hearing aid to improve hearing if you’re not quite ready for hearing aids.
INTERVIEWER: Well Pam a poll that’s just been conducted by AARP and the
American Speech Language Hearing Association reveals that people are commonly
disappointed with hearing aids from the standpoint of their ability to provide clear
hearing in noisy environments. Is that true? Is that really a failing commonly of hearing
aids or does it reflect peoples lack of information about how to use them properly or over
expectations about what hearing aids can do?
RESPONDENT: Well first of all it’s a noisy world and all of us have problems
understanding speech in noisy backgrounds. If you’ve been living in a world of silence
because you have had a untreated hearing loss and then you all of a sudden get hearing
aids you’re going to be hearing that background noise for the first in maybe many years.
And it a takes a while for the brain to retrain to filter out unwanted background noise.
The new devices today are wonderful. They’re fully digital. They have circuitry that can
help to minimize background noise and that annoying whistle, that feedback sound that
sometimes happens when you turn the volume of the hearing aid up.
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So the digital components within the hearing aid and the special features for noise
reduction can help speech understanding in noisy environments. But as we get older not
only do we lose the ability to hear very soft sounds, but our ability to process what we
hear up in the brain also diminishes as we age. So it’s not all the hearing aid, it’s some
environment, some part the limitations of the digital technology and some part the
limitations of your brain to process the signals once they reach the brain. You should not
INTERVIEWER: If you are some - I’m sorry go ahead.
RESPONDENT: I was just going to say that the best is not to have overly realistic
expectations when you receive a new device. That you should return to the audiologist if
you’re having trouble adjusting to the devices because the audiologist can provide
additional auditory training which can help you with these kinds of difficulties
understanding speech and background noise.
INTERVIEWER: Is it common for people to have exaggerated expectations about
hearing aids?
RESPONDENT: I would say that it’s common to have expectations that are too high and
too low. Some people are stopped from getting any help because they remember knowing
somebody decades ago that had a hearing aid that they didn’t like and they put it into
their bedside table, never used it again. That experience from twenty-thirty years ago may
impact the person who is seeking professional help, now it may stop them. “I remember
my aunt didn’t like hearing aids, so they’re not going to work for me.” So that’s what
people do.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting. Okay. Well if you are someone who wants to investigate
getting a hearing aid for his or her self, what is the most informed and economical way to
go about that?
RESPONDENT: Today most people seek out health related information on the Internet.
And the Internet is a great resource for information if you know how to locate reliable
sources online. You don’t want to be looking at information that is incorrect or is going
to lead you in the wrong direction. You want to learn as much as you can about hearing
loss and hearing aids.
Here’s some sites that I find are highly reliable and I would recommend to people to
investigate to increase their knowledge on hearing loss and hearing aids. First you can go
to ASHA or you can go to the AARP website. The Hearing Loss Association of America
website. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website and the National
Institutes on Deafness and Communication Disorders website. And once you’ve educated
yourself on hearing, hearing loss and hearing aids it’s best to seek out the services of an
audiologist. The audiologist will test you; the audiologist will counsel you on the
uniqueness of your hearing loss. You will communicate to the audiologist the uniqueness
of your hearing concerns and together the two of you will match up the appropriate plan
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of care for you whether it includes a hearing aid or not. And you can find audiologists
using the ASHA website. We have a professional locator directory. Just go to
www.asha.org and use the search term, ‘find an audiologist’.
Unfortunately technology is not cheap. For the best economical way to get a hearing aid
is to get one that is right for you and for your hearing needs. If you don’t need all those
add-on features, don’t spend money on them. Work with your audiologist to discuss your
unique hearing concerns.
INTERVIEWER: Well earlier you were referencing how people maybe sort of stuck in
the past, maybe locked on to an experience of decades ago as being representative of the
way things are today and we all know that so much changes with time. And I think that
includes hearing aids. How have hearing aids changed and how are they expected to
change even further?
RESPONDENT: Well in the past few decades there have been huge changes in hearing
aid technology. All we have to do is look at the music industry. There was a time when
we were all listening to cassettes. Those tapes are analog technology. And then the music
industry changed over to a fully digital technology. That’s why we are all listening to
CDs or downloading songs off of the Internet, that’s digital. Digital sound quality is now
incorporated into hearing aids. It’s far superior to analog sound quality. The size of
hearing aids is another thing that has changed over time. They continue to get smaller and
smaller.
Many of the newest devices today fit behind the ear; they’re very, very small and they
connect to the ear canal using a thin wire that is barely visible. These mini behind the ear
devices have enough room to include a telephone coil, which is important to access
certain hearing assistive technology systems. Many of these mini behind the ear hearing
aids also come with what’s called an ‘open fit’. Open fit hearing aids allow for low
frequency sounds to pass through the ear canal for normal processing and provide more
power in the high frequencies. Most people, most adults with hearing loss have a sensoryneural hearing loss that affects the high frequencies first. And this open fit design is
specific for that type of hearing loss.
INTERVIEWER: Well I think it’s commonly known that hearing aids are not cheap. But
what about the range of cost of hearing aids, I mean among models of hearing aids and
how does one know which model is for them?
RESPONDENT: I would not anticipate that an individual would be able to make these
decisions without consulting an audiologist. Hearing aids today are uniquely programmed
to fit the individuals’ unique hearing loss. So it’s really a conversation that happens
between you and the audiologist to determine through a plan of care which device is
going to be most appropriate for you. What are the extra add-on features that you need?
Each one of these add-on features can increase the cost of the hearing aid. So it’s very
important that you have this conversation with the audiologist to look at your hearing loss
and for you to share with your audiologist what your hearing concerns are.
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If you are retired and mostly in control of environment, you can control moving to a
quieter part of the house for a conversation. You can control the volume on your T.V.
You have more control. If you are still working you’ve lost some control. If you are a
professor and you are lecturing in a large auditorium you may have a hard time hearing a
student’s question from the back of the auditorium. In that more difficult listening
environment you may need to have some of those extra add-on features.
INTERVIEWER: Well those are all excellent points. Pam Mason, thank you very much.
RESPONDENT: Thank you.
END TRANSCRIPT
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